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Sunday, April 21, 2013

The Story Of Canadian Spine Surgeon Dr David Kuntz

Somethings
in history are lost so while we are on the subject of filthy, lousy
scumbag criminal doctors I would like to present the story of Dr David
Kuntz. As you all know who have read our sister blog Gastric Bypass Kills,
doctors for the most part don't give a shit about anything but money
and if they maim a patient they really don't give a shit unless they get
sued and even then their insurance covers it. The following documents
the ordeal of a brave spine surgeon who got screwed blue and tattooed by
a gang of criminal doctors and filthy judges.This is not exclusive to fat people. Thinlings are also effected by spinal disease but fat folks tend to have more lower back issues and knee and hip joint problems due to our weight. Luckily for us fatlings many of us are "too fat" for knee and hip implants and that is a blessing in disguise due to the metallosis poisoning from the metal on metal inplants ad their high rates of failure. Until the medical industry cleans up its act stick with a cane or a power chair.The matter of Dr. David Kuntz

The following report of the case of Dr. Kuntzs has all the elements of
corruption on the part of the judiciary and the legal profession.

Dr. Kuntzs believed, as most people want to believe that justice would
prevail in the Candian Courts, but he learned that while Canada likes to
boast about being the best judiciary in the world, it is corrupt to the
core, somewhat like the myth of fresh air, pure water and free health
care, the judicial system is toxic in Canada.

The man some consider to be among the finest orthopedic surgeons who
ever lived, but who himself claims to be the "most-sued" doctor in
medical history, wants to leave the Canadian medical establishment
behind and set up his own worldwide fleet of private hospital ships.

Dr. David Kuntz, of Vancouver would begin by converting vessels -- he is
even considering the three B.C. fast ferries--to 50-bed
state-of-the-art hospitals with two operating rooms specializing in the
latest in neck and back surgery.

Incorporating an acrylic
replacement disc which he invented, the operation would not only get
those with injured spines back on their feet, but, Dr. Kuntz maintains,
would also treat a host of now-incurable neurodegenerative diseases
affecting the entire aging population--including migraines, Alzheimer's,
strokes, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's, chronic fatigue syndrome and
multiple sclerosis.

These he calls the "Kuntz's Kurse Variants"
because he believes that in many instances they result from lack of
blood flow to the upper spinal cord, brain stem and hindbrain. As Dr.
Kuntz puts it, they can be cured only when replacement discs "return the
spine to The Manufacturer's original specifications."

Once the
spine is elongated by the discs, the arteries alongside it are freed:
"It's just like unkinking a garden hose," he says. "Many patients wake
up from surgery with their blinding headaches gone, difficulty in
concentration relieved and short-term memory improved. It took hundreds
of patients telling me their stories before--my God! It hit me and drove
me to research."

The hospital ships could be a multibillion-
dollar industry, Dr. Kuntz believes, "bigger than Microsoft, because
while not everyone has a computer, everyone has a spine, and everyone's
spine shortens."

As an indication of the enormous potential, he
says there are 10 patients requiring disc replacement for every patient
requiring hip replacement, and 40 million chronic headache sufferers in
the U.S. alone who could be candidates for screening and treatment.
"Demand will exceed ability to supply services," he predicts.

He also foresees the hospital ships pumping lifeblood into the economy
of B.C.'s north coast. "Since September 11, people have been reluctant
to risk travel just to see the scenery; however, they will travel for
medical reasons when they're desperate for help, and B.C. would become a
global end-destination for medical tourism similar to the Mayo Clinic."

Moreover, the ships would provide a "medical merchant marine
fleet" for rapid deployment to areas of earthquake, terrorist attack,
nuclear explosions and other disasters.

Such unique floating
facilities would also circumnavigate one rather awkward complication:
the controversial Dr. Kuntz, has lost his licence to practise medicine
in B.C.

"But on a vessel, marine law applies, and a Canadian
licence would not be necessary." According to the Canadian Coastguard,
doctors only have to fulfill the practice requirements of the country
registering the ships. "I would register in a jurisdiction that's
friendly and guarantees legislation that no one could sue me.

You need a safe jurisdiction because this entails a complete change in
existing thought; you'd be upsetting many peoples' income flow and
meaning in life. You only need one or two to tie you up in court for the
rest of your life."

The reason Dr. Kuntz is so adamant about a
safe harbour? "I know the WCB [Workers' Compensation Board] would be
looking for that one in 100 who would sue."

Animus between Dr.
Kuntz and the WCB has lasted a quarter-century. "A maverick B.C. surgeon
is barred from practice, but hundreds of patients want him back," wrote
Ted Byfield in a 1989 cover story for B.C. Report.

Mr. Byfield
described Dr. Kuntz as a "revered bone surgeon of the B.C. northland
who for years performed more spinal surgery than anyone else in the
province.

He has been ousted as an incompetent by the British
Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and two months ago was
physically dragged through the snow and mud from the game farm he sought
to develop as a refuge for injured wildlife, the bank having foreclosed
on the house and property.

He now lives on the donations of
his former patients in a one-bedroom Kitimat apartment while the town
council, three labour unions, local doctors and some 750 former patients
bombard the B.C. Health Ministry with demands for a full-scale public
inquiry into his suspension."

Thirteen years later, Dr. Kuntz is still awaiting that inquiry.

Dr. Kuntz has since lived several years in the office of his lawyer,
and eight years on an "old scow on the Fraser River in which the pipes
kept freezing and breaking."

His wife and baby daughter were
forced to live in her parents' home, although the penniless family is
now reunited in Vancouver. His myriad legal battles have taken him to
the Supreme Court of Canada.

Through it all, he has been kept
going by former patients such as Robert Hamblin, 60, of Houston, 200
miles west of Prince George, who still phones to provide regular doses
of encouragement.

Mr. Hamblin had severely damaged five spinal
discs in a car accident 20 years ago. "I couldn't turn my head, my hands
were like clubs, so numb I couldn't pick up anything, and my eyesight
was starting to go funny.

"I
went and saw that little guy [Dr. Kuntz], and he said, 'I'll see you in
Hazelton hospital tomorrow. I'll have you on your feet again.' I woke
up feeling so good, I jumped right out of bed. They came looking for me,
and I said, 'I'm going home.' It was like someone gave me a new life."

Twenty years later, Mr. Hamblin, still "100%," has his own drilling and
blasting company and "is just a-givin' 'er." What he found mysterious,
however, was the way in which he was later treated by three doctors with
the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC).

"I was
suing someone over the car accident, and ICBC said they wanted to know
what was ailing me," recounts Mr. Hamblin. "They sent me to three
Vancouver doctors...during their tests I ended up on the epileptic ward
in a straitjacket because I reacted to the dye they put in my back.

When I recovered," he continues in a tone of incredulity, "they told me
I should sue Dr. Kuntz because he had no business using his method on
me, and the discs wouldn't last 10 years. I said, 'How the hell do you
sue a man who's done such wonderful work?' But I know that most people
who are told, 'Sue this man,' probably would. I know one guy who sued
him and got over $100,000, and he's in fine shape."

In 1981 two
Vancouver doctors came north to investigate Dr. Kuntz's practice and
discovered the doctor repairing people with a prefabricated disc he made
himself from methyl methacrylate.

He had implanted these discs
in more than 100 people, who then required only three-and-a-half days
in hospital against the usual eight. (They also recovered in six weeks,
compared to the usual six months.)

Appalled, the Vancouver
doctors recommended an immediate moratorium on the procedure. Dr. Kuntz
ignored it. Neither his patients nor their doctors had ever complained
about the results, he said, "and my primary obligation was to my
patients, not to these old retiring guys who were out of date."

He continued for another five years before an inquiry headed by a
former professor found he had "insufficient skill and knowledge" to
practise medicine in British Columbia. He was notified in August 1986
that he was suspended.

In the appeal process, he says he was
denied access to the files upon which the decision was based because
they had been reportedly lost.

More than a decade later, the
case is roaring on. In April, Alliance MP Darrel Stinson presented
before the House of Commons a petition by Dr. Kuntz's patients calling
on Parliament to reinforce the federal Supreme Court Act.

It
refers to the fact that Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin in 1990 sat in
judgment a second time on the same case (Kuntz v. WCB) she had heard in
1988 as a panelist for the B.C. Court of Appeal.

Attorney
General Martin Cauchon responded in writing to the petition: "A judge
who knowingly assumes jurisdiction in a case in which he or she has
directly participated in a lower court, either as judge or as counsel,
would offend against the long-held requirement of judicial
impartiality."

However, he made no promise to pursue it, and how Dr. Kuntz can bring enough pressure to bear on Parliament is not clear.

Still, he intends to try. "First I will be asking Parliament to impeach
the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin,
for violating Section 28(1) of the Federal Supreme Court Act [against
judging the merits of one's own ruling on appeal]. Then I will be asking
Parliament to invoke Section 33 of the Canadian.

Charter of
Rights and Freedoms which allows it to overrule the judges whenever the
judges have erred in their interpretation of the Charter."

Yet
it all began so simply, and so very, very long ago. Dr. Kuntz grew up in
northern Quebec at Malartic, where as a boy he trapped in the bush and
discovered an interest in anatomy. He graduated in medicine from the
University of Toronto and did a four-year residency at UBC.

He then built a successful surgical practice in northern B.C., bought a ranch, and then the trouble began.

He remembers piloting his helicopter home late on the night of May 17, 1979, after his first peer review by the college.

Unbeknownst to him, his former professor, Dr. F.P. Patterson, had
recommended he be told to take retraining. That same professor would
later tell a lawyer "He [Dr. Kuntz] is to be crushed."

He was
heading up the Skeena River, "the River of the Mists," the only fixed
landmark to guide by, heading for his ranch deep in the valley of the
Kispiox.

During the nine years he had been doing joint
replacements, he had been waiting for someone to invent an artificial
spinal disc.

Reflecting on the bewildered questions his examiners had posed regarding his surgical practice, it struck him.

"My God, I've done 400 necks alone; I have more experience than anyone
in Canada with bone graft fusion. I'm a leader in the field. It's up to
me!" As he flew along the Kispiox, he pondered the technical problems of
designing a plastic disc that could be locked into the vertebrae.

"The sun was setting behind jagged mountain ridges," he recalls, "and
the clouds were spilling over them. And then I thought, 'That's how I'll
lock it in. With ridges. Bone will grow into the ridges of an implant,
just like mist spilling over the mountains and lock it in for life!'"

Suddenly he realized there was only one light as a landmark in his valley up ahead.

"My heart was pumping, I'd never landed in the dark. I vowed that if I
got it down safely I'd start working on that disc. It was pitch black. I
was gliding over the beaver pond, but I couldn't make out the ground;
just then a beaver broke the water and the ripples allowed me to see. I
landed safely and as I tied the blade down, I thought, 'I'm going to do
it.'"

The next day he sat down on his porch and started to whittle, something he was used to.

"I had shaped a lot of grafts from bone harvested from peoples' hips."

Once he had the wooden form, he talked a dentist into showing him how
to make dental moulds, formed the disc with methyl methacrylate, and was
in business. A friend who required neck surgery volunteered to be the
first patient.

"I told him this would do away with the incision
at the hip necessary for a bone graft, but if there was a problem with
the disc, I could always replace it with a bone graft from the hip."

The young man awoke from surgery ready to go home. "I made him stay
another day, but coming home with me, he was able to fly the helicopter!
I never looked back."

By 1982 Dr. Kuntz held international
patents on the disc; all subsequent patents on preformed discs have
named his as the "mother" patent, signifying a breakthrough in thinking
at that point.

Previously the molten acrylic had been poured
into the patient's spine, to be held in place by ligaments until it
solidified, but always with the concern it would flow into harmful
areas.

Worth millions today, the patents have long since been lost to him through bankruptcy.

In a sworn affidavit, patient Karin Hanhart described the "general cry
of disbelief and outrage throughout the north at the actions of the
College of Physicians and Surgeons" when Dr. Kuntz was suspended in
1986.

She explains, "There was a great discrepancy between the
perception of Dr. Kuntz by the college who suspended him for
'insufficient skill and knowledge' and how he was perceived by
northerners and their referring doctors. The patients virtually
unanimously saw him as a highly skilled surgeon solving problems that
southern surgeons had failed to solve."

In a survey which Mrs.
Hanhart has called "perhaps the first-ever patient-organized survey of a
doctor's results by patients untainted by doctor-bias in assessing
results," it was found that 99% of 396 patients were either satisfied or
very satisfied with the results of Dr. Kuntz's surgery.

"Compared to the average success rate of orthopedic surgery, which is
65%, we cannot see how Dr. Kuntz can be declared unskilled and
incompetent," she declared in a sworn affidavit.

"We suspected
the answer could only lie in what we have heard described as
professional jealousy, for we, his patients, could never accept that he
did not have the exceptional skill and knowledge for which we sought him
out. The results speak for themselves."

Much to her surprise,
too, she learned that Dr. Kuntz had been criticized for doing surgery on
six of the patients who turned up on her random survey.

"All
six were very pleased when they were located, and most had WCB claims
that had been, or were still, under appeal. None of them indicated that
they had given the WCB permission to complain about Dr. Kuntz's care of
them, for all were happy. I was shocked to find that the names of some
of these patients had been used to remove Dr. Kuntz; they certainly
weren't complaining when we did our survey which was after their cases
had already been used without their knowledge to suspend Dr. Kuntz."

The registrar of the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr.
Morris VanAndel, counters that "Licensure is not a popularity survey, it
is based on certain qualifications. Dr. Kuntz failed an in-depth review
of skill and knowledge. The main determining fact was he was unable to
convince three experts in the field of orthopedic medicine. He has been
alleging all kinds of wrongdoing ever since, but the college decision
has been supported many times, and he has exhausted most avenues of
appeal."

There certainly were some dissatisfied patients, but
after 20 years they are difficult to track down to interview. Quicklaw
legal databases list five malpractice judgments against him, which is
high even for a doctor. Dr. Kuntz shrugs off such losses as motivated
more by medical politics than medical merit.

"He ticked off his
peers," recalls one colleague. Another wrote at the time, "It is my
opinion to some degree his future depends on whether the man will taste
humility and leave his greatness to the posterity of his procedure."

Anesthetist Andre Pasquet of Hazelton, B.C., wrote in the late 1980s,
"In my view, there was only one item which really could be, perhaps,
partly valid, and that was to the effect that Dr. Kuntz was somehow not
an easy person to get along with...His technical surgical ability is
superb. He always seemed to know what should be done. As one of the
other physicians at Winch Hospital once said to me, 'You know, David
Kuntz seems to have a sixth sense telling him what is the best way to
solve an orthopedic problem.' I had to agree."

Dr. Peter
Newberry, director of UBC's post-graduate training program in family
medicine, worked closely with Dr. Kuntz for six years.

"It was
unusual to find a physician with his dedication to rural service, being
on call 24/7. The problem was that he was very innovative, particularly
in neck procedures and relief of nerve pressure. But innovation requires
research to affirm that it is valuable, not harmful.

David
wasn't prepared to take time from his practice to do the necessary
formal research. There were a couple of lawsuits, and the college just
said, 'That's enough.' The college wanted proof of procedure. There have
been many instances in the history of medicine where brand new
breakthroughs were found to be a disaster in the long term."

The matter of Dr. David Kuntz continues on...Dr. Kuntz, of course, has heard this argument for years, and has a rebuttal.

"The government of B.C.," he warns, "is risking a huge class action
from all the people in the northwest deprived of state-of-the-art care
all those years because it failed to deal with college criminality,
scientific fraud and abuse of the courts."

Far better, he says, for the government to face the issue head-on and claim discovery of the disc as a B.C. innovation.

It could then make amends to the people for the actions of past
administrations by turning over the fast-ferry fleet to mitigate the
damages and restore access to the people to state-of-the-art medicine". HIGH PRAISE

'The
Academy is quite disturbed about the unfair treatment of Dr. Kuntz by
the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British
Columbia.

In fact, the Academy feels that the College is "dead-wrong" about their judgments and decisions against Dr. Kuntz...

the Academy firmly believes that Dr. David Kuntz is one of the finest,
if not THE finest, orthopedic spinal surgeon in the world today.

Perhaps, Dr. Kuntz is one of the best spinal orthopedic surgeons who has ever lived.'

--Sworn affidavit by Michael R. Rask, chairman of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopedic Surgeons.

FLOATING A PROPOSAL FOR HEALTHY PROFITS

In a letter to PriceWaterhouseCoopers, sales team for the fast fleet,
or PacifiCats, Dr. Kuntz has laid out his plan for hospital ships:

- The required share offering will build upon the company's potential
to monopolize provision of artificial-disc replacement services.

- There is no effective competition globally, and the patented B.C.
cervical-disc replacements are known to be effective in treating and
curing chronic headache, including migraine.

They are also
effective in lumbar surgery, and are being copied in Germany. The
potential market for services is enormous, as there is an existing
recognized expenditure of $60 billion annually for low-back treatments
in the U.S. alone.

- Arrangements with participating cruise
ships will hold patients in the north to benefit the local economies of
Kitimat, Prince Rupert, the Queen Charlotte Islands or Kitsault and
Stewart.

There are approximately 30 Alaska cruises weekly
delivering a million seniors annually to the north as potential
candidates for screening.

- The mothballed coastal town of
Kitsault near the Alaska border may be purchased and renamed
Rejuvenation City as a holding area for patients seeking screening.

It has 220 apartments and 96 homes, paved streets, shopping malls, an
Olympic-sized swimming pool, curling rinks and buildings to support a
northern operation. Year-round employment could be created there to
support the global operation.

- The business plan calls for
construction of more hospital ships to serve as satellite hospitals
stationed elsewhere in the world.A CASE THAT COULD HAUNT CANADA'S CHIEF JUSTICE

If
Parliament does grant Dr. Kuntz's request to impeach Chief Justice
Beverley McLachlin, overrule all judgments against him since July 1986,
and restore him to B.C.'s medical registry, the legal errors he alleges
will be revealed include:

- A legal judgment which quotes from a report which had earlier been legally sealed and its distribution prohibited.

This report by the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Kuntz
claims, contained "untested, untrue, fraudulent hearsay" information
which defamed him and interfered with a fair trial in any court
thereafter.

- Chief Justice McLachlin had originally heard the
Kuntz case in 1988 as a judge of B.C.'s Court of Appeal, along with
Justices Seaton and R.P. Anderson.

Soon afterward Justice Anderson retired from the bench and in 1992 was retained by Dr. Kuntz's lawyer to review the case.

When he delivered his private opinion in 1992, Mr. Anderson (now
deceased) wrote that the decision of B.C.'s medical college to delicense
Dr. Kuntz was fatally flawed, even though he had ruled against him in
1988. First, legal understanding of the rules of cross-examination had
since evolved in Dr. Kuntz's favour.

Second, the medical
council had relied upon evidence unconnected with Dr. Kuntz's surgical
skill and knowledge. Third, such other evidence as it did take into
account had been condensed and had left out relevant material.

-
Dr. Kuntz believes that Chief Justice McLachlin should declare a
general mistrial, invalidating all judgments against him after July 31,
1986, since this was the earliest date that the College of Physicians
and Surgeons first circulated the "untrue, untested, fraudulent and
sealed" report in violation of the Evidence Act. THE LAW OF THE JUDICIAL JUNGLE

In
December 2000, Dr. Kuntz obtained material which he believes reveals a
conspiracy between B.C.'s Workers' Compensation Board (WCB) and the
Medical Services Commission (MSC, which helps determine which services
are covered by medicare)--a conspiracy to defame him.

He
strongly suspects this eventually led to the loss of his medical
licence, since it predated his first investigation by the College of
Physicians and Surgeons.

In a December 1976 memo written to Dr.
J.S. Gibbings, the WCB's executive medical director, a WCB claims
adjudicator wrote about "unauthorized surgery being carried out by Dr.
Kuntz," which was a reference to Dr. Kuntz's habit of not waiting for
authorization for payment from the WCB.

While some other
surgeons did not operate if payment was not authorized, Dr. Kuntz says
he operated on anyone who needed surgery, and then let the bureaucrats
decide who paid for it; if need be, he wouldn't get paid at all.

The adjudicator's memo continues,

"I don't think that the Board's responsibility becomes unlimited just
because Dr. Kuntz persists in imposing unauthorized surgery on workers
who have claims with the Board. Possibly it is time that we consider
taking some action against this doctor as this is only one of many
claims where the Board has been placed in a predicament by reason of his
unilateral action...

It is my opinion that [the patient whose
spine Dr. Kuntz had repaired] had gross degeneration in the spine which
pre-dated his first claim with the Workers' Compensation Board."

Dr. Gibbings then forwarded this memo to the chairman of the board of
the WCB with a scribbled note: "He being the only orthopedic specialist
in N.W. B.C. makes it hard to suspend him."

"I don't know whether we will ever solve Dr. Kuntz' problem, which from
our point of view is often proceeding with elective surgery without
prior authorization.

He is one of our worst offenders in this
matter... Dr. Schinbein has [talked to him] in the past and I believe
there has been some improvement, but not to the degree that we would
like to see."

"Here we have the recorded plot," alleges Dr. Kuntz.

"The WCB is targeting me at the top of the list for doing unauthorized
surgery. The patient had had such serious pathology that the dye
wouldn't flow through. They're saying someone should talk to me; they're
trying to influence me."

However, he says, Dr. Shinbein told him to "just go ahead as before, and I'll okay the authorizations after the fact."

Dr. Kuntz says he usually had patients back at work by the time the payment was authorized. That made the WCB angry, he says.

"We were never angry," responds Gerald Massing, WCB senior legal
counsel who has been dealing with legal battles with Dr. Kuntz for 25
years.

If the board has approved of a procedure, he says, it
pays for all negative consequences. Thus, the WCB needs to keep control
of its clients' medical solutions.

Dr. Kuntz counters by
producing the minutes of a B.C. Medical Association (BCMA)/WCB liaison
committee dated January 18, 1977. Among other matters, it dealt with
authorization for surgery.

"The Board is continuing to have
problems with unauthorized surgery, particularly back surgery, and the
suggestion was made that payment should not be made for surgery which
has not been authorized.

Apparently in some cases if payment is refused by the WCB, the surgeon bills, and is paid by, the MSC [medicare].

The Board is not really concerned about the actual dollar cost of the
surgery [$200-$375, depending on the number of discs replaced] but is
concerned about the long-term cost to the patient of inappropriate
surgery."

"Do you see how they are beginning to slur the
professional judgment of any surgeon willing to care for the worker
after WCB refuses to fund care?" suggests Dr. Kuntz. "Now they are
declaring jointly that unauthorized surgery has become inappropriate
surgery.

Yet if workers are insured under medicare, they are
perfectly entitled to have their surgery paid by medicare. This is a
conspiracy between two paying agencies.

Neither wants to pay,
so they defame the healthcare provider who dares to help the worker
after the WCB has reneged on its legal obligations to him.

The
MSC is also betraying the worker because they don't want to pay what
they feel the WCB should pay, so they join the conspiracy. And the only
way to handle it is to defame the provider." Responds Mr. Massing:

"Dr.
Kuntz launched the only conspiracy lawsuit the board has ever had. It
was dismissed after appeal. We don't have the interest or time to
conspire; we have a quarter-million workers we have to get back to
work."

IT'S DIFFERENT UP NORTH

'Whatever
the rights and wrongs of the case, northern Canada has been built and
survives to this day because of people like David Kuntz.

It is
unfortunately all too common these days for doctors who do not normally
stray further north than the ninth hole of the Capilano Golf Club in
West Vancouver to fly up to the north and make invidious comments on
those who practise in far more demanding and widespread communities.'

--Dr. William J. Jory, Hants, England, twice president of the B.C. Medical Association In the meantime here is a blog created by John Carten telling the story, in his own words about of Dr. John David Kuntz